Loewenstein, Karl b. November 9, 1891; Munich, Bavaria d.July 10, 1973; Heidelberg, Baden- Wurttemberg
German American political scientist. Loewenstein was a promising young aca
demic when the Nazis came to power and forced him to flee to the United States on account of his Jewish heritage.
He became a political scientist of international renown at Amherst College in Massachusetts.Loewenstein grew up in Munich, where he completed the Gymnasium (academic high school) in 1910. He studied law at the universities in Munich, Berlin, Heidelberg, and Paris. Just before the outbreak of World War I he passed the first state examination toward law practice. From 1914 to 1917 he served with the German army on the western front, but was released from service for poor vision. In 1918 he completed his second state examination and was admitted to the legal profession. In 1919 Loewenstein finished his dissertation on the topic of the French National Assembly of 1789 and was awarded a doctorate in law (Dr. jur.) by the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich. From 1919 he practiced law in Munich until 1933, when he was disbarred because he was Jewish. In 1931 he completed his second dissertation (Habilitations- schrift) on the topic of constitutional amendment and was appointed an assistant professor (Privatdozent) at the University of Munich.
After Adolf Hitler came to power, Loewenstein went to the United States in December 1933, having received a two- year appointment at Yale University that was supported, in part, by the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars. In 1936 he was appointed to the faculty of Amherst College. During World War II, while maintaining his position at Amherst, he worked for the departments of Justice and State. He was involved in a working group of the American Law Institute that was established to draft an international convention on human rights. After the war Loewenstein was legal adviser to the military government in Germany in the Allied Control Council in Berlin, where he had substantial effect on legal developments in postwar Germany.
In 1946 he returned to Amherst, where he taught until he took emeritus status in 1961.Loewenstein was a well-known political scientist in both Germany and the United States. He published many scholarly books and articles on public law and comparative government. Upon the outbreak of World War II he published a popular book, Hitler's Germany, the Nazi Background to War (1939), in which he warned Americans of the Fascist threat. American troops marched into Germany with his guide “Government and Politics in Germany,” in volume 1 of Governments of Continental Europe, War Department Education Manual E-254 (1944). After 1945 Loewenstein played an important role in the development of political science in Germany through his involvement in the reopening and reorganization of universities. The German government recognized Loewenstein’s work by awarding him the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Order of Merit).
James R. Maxeiner
See also American Occupation Zone;
Intellectual Exile
References and Further Reading
Commager, Henry Steele, et al. Festschrift fur Karl Loewenstein aus Anlaβseines achtzigsten Geburtstages. Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1971.
Stiefel, Ernst C., and Frank Mecklenburg. Deutsche Juristen im amerikanischen Exil (1933—1950). Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1991.